Mugabe riot police clear churches of homeless

Bulldozers destroying buildings

By Peta Thornycroft in Harare

12:01AM BST 22 Jul 2005

Armed riot police and youth militia of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party are rounding up homeless people who have sought refuge in church compounds where they fled after their homes were demolished by the government.

Witnesses said hundreds were cleared from about 17 churches in the country's second city of Bulawayo. Clergymen said they believed the homeless had been taken to a government "transit" camp and would then be dumped in remote rural areas.

They were victims of President Robert Mugabe's "Operation Restore Order", during which security forces burned legal and informal dwellings in the Killarney township in Bulawayo on June 10.

The United Nations has said more than 200,000 people were made homeless during Mr Mugabe's campaign in urban areas, home to most supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

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The new direction in the crackdown came as it was announced that the national airline was suspending several domestic and international flights because of dire fuel shortages.

Imports of diesel and other fuel have been erratic since 1999 amid foreign currency shortages due to poor exports.

The fuel woes have exacerbated an economic crisis with food shortages, record unemployment and one of the highest rates of inflation in the world.

According to a human rights monitor in Bulawayo who asked not to be named, many of those who were herded from the churches were children.

"They were asleep and it's winter and freezing at night in Bulawayo. We are not sure where they were taken as we have no fuel to go and check on the situation."

The Rev Ray Motsi from the Bulawayo Baptist Church said the people had been taken to a "transit" camp established on a confiscated former white-owned commercial farm, Helensvale, about 20 miles outside Bulawayo.

"The people are taken by truck to the transit camp and we have been told we cannot go in there. We suspect they will then be taken and dumped far away so that we cannot get to them.

"We understand the United Nations has ordered that all the transit camps established during this campaign be cleared out," Mr Motsi said.

Seven priests from various Bulawayo churches worked through Wednesday night and yesterday trying to sort out yet another humanitarian crisis.

A UN spokesman, Marie Okabe, said the special envoy Anna Tibaijuka had concluded her report on Mr Mugabe's two months of demolitions and mass arrests of the urban poor and handed it to the government, 48 hours before its contents are made public.

Ms Tibaijuka, the executive director of the Nairobi-based UN-Habitat, spent two weeks in Zimbabwe investigating Mr Mugabe's campaign, which he claimed was designed to combat crime.

In a development apparently connected to the release of Ms Tibaijuka's report, more than 2,000 people were told they could return to their small stands in Hatcliffe Estate, north of Harare.

"So why were they evicted in the first place? They have nothing to go back to. Their homes were demolished and most of their possessions were destroyed," said the MDC MP for the area, Trudy Stevenson.

Telephones at police headquarters in Bulawayo went unanswered yesterday.